Martin Brundle claims FIA ROBBED F1 fans of action at Belgian GP

Belgian Grand Prix

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Brundle claims FIA ROBBED F1 fans of action at Belgian GP

The FIA made an early decision at Spa and Brundle was not at all pleased about it

Joe Ellis

Wednesday 2 August 2023 12:12

Martin Brundle was fuming at a decision made by the FIA just as the Belgian GP weekend was getting started.

The stewards made the choice to not use FP1 as the starting grid for the race should qualifying be cancelled due to rain.

In the end, qualifying went ahead and a grid was set properly but Brundle didn't want that clarification from the FIA.

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He thinks the FIA robbed fans of a lot of FP1 action by announcing their decision as teams wouldn't bother running or pushing in the wet conditions.

Brundle: I was disappointed

The FIA were keen to avoid a big crash with someone trying to push too hard

"The wet Friday opening session was frustrating in several ways," Brundle said to Sky Sports.

"For the teams it meant zero running on race tyres and full fuel, so they would be obliged to take an educated guess on both those aspects along with aero levels, suspension set-up, and ride heights for what was always expected to be a drier race afternoon. Talk about jeopardy.

"Furthermore, the FIA race control declared that it would not be a competitive session so that teams and drivers would not push too hard in the anticipation that, should qualifying be cancelled, they might well suspect that FP1 finishing order would set the grid.

"I was disappointed by that, the teams and drivers along with all the appropriate equipment are quite capable of judging such situations especially when setting lap times ideally away from other cars. The fans deserved more track action."